I’m not going to pretend to be a scientist, but I think they’ve gone the wrong way with the correlation vs causation on that one. :)
Copper is an essential nutrient in soils.
I’d be very careful about using copper this way.
While ingesting small amounts of copper is ok, and in fact a good part of a diet, Ingesting too much copper is not a good thing, and can be toxic.
Having copper piping, etc. in close proximity to a garden risks having it leach into the plants, which might then be ingested. Since copper is a fairly soft metal then rain could slowly corrode it and introduce it to the plants.
https://theownerbuildernetwork.co/gardens/2025/10/09/electroculture-gardening/
I literally learned about this less than an hour ago.
My friend was telling me that she’s going to put some copper piping from an old fridge in her backyard garden.
Apparently, this has been a thing for centuries, and only stopped being popular when WW2 demanded all the scrap metal on hand.
I’m not going to pretend to be a scientist, but I think they’ve gone the wrong way with the correlation vs causation on that one. :)
Copper is an essential nutrient in soils.
https://www.tfi.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/tfi-copper.pdf
I’d be very careful about using copper this way. While ingesting small amounts of copper is ok, and in fact a good part of a diet, Ingesting too much copper is not a good thing, and can be toxic.
Having copper piping, etc. in close proximity to a garden risks having it leach into the plants, which might then be ingested. Since copper is a fairly soft metal then rain could slowly corrode it and introduce it to the plants.
A bit more on copper toxicology here.
And that leaching will be vastly influenced by pH. So if your soil or rain is acidic you’ll get a lot more.